


Angel of death

by m_findlow



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, M/M, Torchwood Fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25066690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_findlow/pseuds/m_findlow
Summary: The team are up against an unknown force. Earth tremors, serial killings and mutilated bodies are all somehow connected, but they're running out of time and the body count is rising.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Angel of death

It’s a rare thing to say that the Hub qualifies as warm, but this morning it definitely does.

Cardiff seems to be having one of those infamous cold snaps, whereby it's even colder than usual. Pretty much everything was covered in frost this morning, and they're predicting snow for the next week. As it was I nearly broke my ankle twice just getting here. The quayside was covered in a sheet of ice so treacherous I thought I might end up in the bay as I slipped across it. Mental note - tell Ianto we probably need to salt it before one of us does break a leg. Judging by the weather, it’s not going to warm up enough for it to melt on its own.

The Hub is all quiet when I reach my desk and peel off my coat and scarf. A quick check of the Rift logs shows that nothing happened overnight, which means Jack and Ianto should be around here somewhere. I half wonder if those two ever sleep. They're always up and about by the time I get here at seven thirty, and they always take the overnight Rift alerts if it's nothing major. It doesn't really seem fair, but they never complain.

'Morning Tosh!' comes the bright greeting from Jack, wandering out of his office.

'Morning,' I reply, equally as enthusiastically. It's hard not to, his mood is just so infectious and with everything we have to deal with, sometimes it's desperately needed.

'Where's Ianto?' he asks.

'I haven't seen him.'

Jack growls in a friendly way. 'He said something about feeding the residents. How about feeding me? Surely I'm more important?'

I offer to make him a cup of tea. 'I could use something to warm me up.'

'That's okay. I can wait. I wouldn't want him thinking you're my girl Friday. He might get jealous.' He winks at me and heads back to his office.

It still amazes me how completely besotted he is with Ianto. Not that Ianto isn't a catch, because he is. But he has this effect on Jack that I can't put my finger on. It's like he keeps Jack anchored to the ground. He's much more settled these days than he used to be. Whatever it is, I’m happy that they've found each other.

As I get on with my morning tasks, Ianto eventually makes his entrance; though the smell of coffee precedes him. The others haven't arrived yet, but that's no surprise. It's only eight o'clock. No sense in waiting for them for the first coffee of the day. If he and Jack have been up since six, Jack won't make it until nine without caffeine.

'What are you working on?' he asks. No one else would, but bless him for caring.

'Just a little something I'm doing in my spare time. Trying to improve the Hub's defences in case of an attack. In theory, this would be capable of putting the Hub into a time lock. Everything outside would appear to stop, whilst time inside continued at its normal pace. Well, that’s not exactly true, in fact, for anyone inside time would actually speed up dramatically. Imagine being able to save problems that could take days in a matter of microseconds in the real world.'

'Cool.'

'It's still a long way off, though. Even if I can get it to work, it might not be big enough to cover the whole Hub.'

'I'm sure you'll figure it out.' Bless. Anyone else would have stopped listening five minutes ago. Not Ianto.

'I get worried when you two are conversing in hushed tones,' Jack says, approaching.

'Afraid you'll miss something?' I ask.

'Afraid Ianto is kissing and telling, but leaving out all the good bits.'

Ianto rolls his eyes and is about to deliver a dry-witted reply when he’s interrupted by Gwen and Owen's entrance through the cogwheel door. I check my watch. They're positively early today. Usually they don't romp in until nine or even after. Gwen always has an excuse, and Owen... well, Owen is just, Owen.

'Bloody cold out there,' he grumbles. 'Thought I was gonna freeze my nuts off.'

I wish he hadn't said that. Now all I can think about is whichever lucky girl last got near them. Probably last night or the night before. Owen's rarely without a date these days or at least someone willing to go home with him. So much for all that talk about settling down.

'Tosh!' I blinked at the sound and suddenly, there was Jack, standing practically in front of me and snapping his fingers in my face. Bugger. Ianto is looking at me worriedly. The others don't even notice. Gwen is already prattling on about something to do with her impending wedding. Jack shifts his gaze over at Owen, then back at me. I feel like he's reading my mind somehow and it's downright embarrassing. Did Ianto tell him I have a crush on Owen? No, he wouldn't do that. Jack must've figured it out for himself. Need to stop being so bloody obvious, not that Owen seems to notice. Then I remember Jack.

'Huh?' I know it sounds lame, but there you go.

'I said, what's the Rift Predictor got in store for us today?'

'Right, yes.' Stop fantasizing and get on with your job. I type a few practiced keystrokes. 'Um,-' but that's as far as I get.

The Rift alarms start blaring around the Hub, but before anyone has a chance to react the whole Hub is shaking like it's being hit by an earthquake.

I can still remember a few minor earth tremors when I was growing up in Japan, but nothing like this. Crawling under my desk seems pretty pointless when there's a good chance that it's not strong enough to withstand anything falling on top of it. Out of habit, I do it anyway. Gwen is huddling under hers right next to me. Some small part of me is glad that she looks as frightened as I feel. Then, just as soon as the shaking starts, it stops.

'What was that?' Gwen asks, gingerly crawling out from under the desk.

'I don't know,' Jack replies. Even he sounds a bit unsteady. 'Is everyone okay?'

I forget to reply, already checking that the computers are still running to try and find out what the hell just happened. Jack is about three seconds away from asking the question. 'Massive Rift spike, right above the Plass,' I tell him.

'Please tell me another space whale didn't just land in the Plass. I don't think the roof of the Hub could withstand the weight,' Ianto quips, trying to lighten the mood.

'I'm going up to take a look,' Jack declares, already pulling on his coat and strapping his Webley to his hip.

'I'm coming with you,' Gwen says. No surprises there.

'And me,' Owen adds. I catch Ianto raising his eyebrows at Owen. 'What? If this place is going to collapse because of a giant space whale, I'm not sticking around.'

'My hero,' Ianto remarks. I wish I could have said that aloud.

'Okay,' Jack says. 'Gwen and Owen with me. Tosh, you and Ianto stay here and find out what you can. Ianto, get the CCTV and give us a heads’ up before we get there.'

'On it.'

And just like that, the three of them disappear up the emergency stairwell.

'Okay,' Ianto says slowly, 'that's weird,' peering at the screen.

'What?'

'I've got the cameras from the Plass and surrounding areas, but there's nothing. Nothing obvious, anyway. Just a bunch of scared and confused tourists. Well, I guess that draws a line through the space whale theory.'

He feeds the information through to Jack whilst I'm still trying to make sense of the Rift readings. They don't make sense either. I try running them against all previously logged activity, but come back with no matches. Whatever it was, it’s totally new. That's always fifty percent exciting and fifty percent terrifying. It's not long after that the rest of the team return from their venture outside.

'What'd you find out, Tosh?' Jack asks. The whole team turns to me, waiting for the answer. They think just because I have computer skills that I can come up with a solution for everything. Unfortunately it isn't always that simple. Truth is, I have no idea.

'This week, Tosh,' Owen gripes.

Yes, go on and tell them Tosh, what's five-eighths of nothing? 'Well,' I begin, 'something definitely came through, but there no visual data, no energy signature that we can identify and nothing that matches anything we've encountered before.'

'Well, that narrows it,' Jack replies. I know he doesn't mean it in a spiteful way, but it irks that I can't give him anything better.

'Must've been big to cause that much of a disruption,' Ianto adds, trying to be helpful. 'We've never had tremors before.'

'And yet, there was absolutely nothing up there.'

'Could it be invisible?' Gwen suggests.

'I suppose that's a possibility,' Jack agrees. 'Tosh, why don't you head up and run a few infrared scans of the area, see if we can pick up anything the external scans can't. Owen can go with you.'

'Why me?' he complains. 'It's like the sodding North Pole out there.'

'Gwen's going to be busy checking police chatter for anything unusual, and Ianto makes amazing coffee. That makes you the least essential right now.'

'Nice to know I'm fucking appreciated round here.'

'I love you, too.'

Owen just growls and pulls his jacket tighter. 'C'mon then. Get your gear and let's get this over with. The sooner we find this bloody invisible space whale, the better.'

There are a handful of people still up on the Plass when we arrive. They've either decided that the danger has passed and are laughing nervously with one another, and recounting the last earthquake in Cardiff a few years back. Others are busily on their phones Googling "earthquake in Cardiff" or tweeting their friends about it.

I pull out my PDA and get to work. I love a good mystery, and Torchwood provides plenty of those. Hmm, that's odd. I turn the PDA off and back on again. It's not happy about something. A few minutes more and it's finally up and running properly. Ah, that could explain it, as the first readings come through. There's an electromagnetic disturbance. If you could see it, it'd be like being in the middle of a pond when you drop a stone in it, ripples forming outwards from the epicentre. I start walking away towards Mermaid Quay and Owen reluctantly follows. The electrons closest to where we were standing are beginning to settle, but the agitation is still being felt as it disburses, getting stronger but weaker at the same time.

'Anything?' Owen asks, huddling close over my shoulder to read the display.

'Maybe,' I answer without conviction. 'I'd like to run a few simulations based on the data.'

'Good,' he says. 'We can do that inside. There's a coffee down there with both our names on it.'

'Okay, so what’ve we got?' Jack announces, last to arrive in the boardroom, but first to be served coffee.

'Nothing unusual from the police's end,' Gwen confirms, 'apart from the obvious.'

'British Geological Survey, which monitors seismic activity across the UK are baffled,' Ianto explains. 'Despite the reports of tremors, their equipment is registering the movement, but they have no records of any tectonic shifting occurring at the time.'

'An earthquake with no earth quaking?'

'Something like that.'

'That matches up with the readings I got up on the Plass,' I add. 'Disturbances in the air, but not on the ground.'

‘An air quake,’ Ianto names it.

'And the Rift data?'

'Would suggest something big, or at least something powerful. The energy generated, must have caused the shockwave we felt. I ran a reconstruction of the event based on the electromagnetic fluctuations to try and calculate the size of what came through.'

Jack's thoroughly interested now. 'How big?'

'Close to three hundred kilo-tonnes.' I can't believe I just said that.

'But that’s-'

'Huge. Big enough to flatten the city.'

'But invisible?'

The others are arguing about size and destructive power, but all I see is the stony look on Jack's face. The one that's trying to stay calm despite what the data is telling us. How often has "big and powerful" been used in the same sentence as "friendly and harmless"? 

'Are we sure it came through? Perhaps the size was enough to tear open the Rift, and all we felt was the shockwave from it passing nearby.' At least, that's what I hope when Jack makes the suggestion. It's a good theory, and if anyone knows more about Rifts and what they're capable of I haven't met them. There's the Doctor of course, but he's not here right now, and I haven't met him. I hope Jack is right and I offer to run some more analysis to confirm the theory.

'Until then, people, we stay alert,' Jack warns us, erring on the side of caution.

The hours from morning to afternoon drag on, and the longer I spend trying to draw up new equations to model the Rift data and what we know about the morning's events, the more I begin to feel that Jack may have been right all along. Perhaps we've gotten lucky this time, and whatever it was has simply passed us by.

Gwen alerts us to a police report. There's been a fatality in Riverside. It looks like a home invasion gone wrong, except for the fact that one of the neighbours claims to have felt another tremor; just a tiny one, enough to "set the glass cabinet tinkling" Gwen reads directly from the report. It's enough to get our attention. There's no such thing as coincidence.

'Only a small one, though. That's encouraging, isn't it?' Ianto offers.

'Maybe,' Jack replies, looking pensive. 'We'd better check it out.'

There's an old woman milling about outside the house, behind the police tape, in her dressing gown and slippers. She's probably the neighbour, but she really shouldn't be out in the cold like this. It's a wonder one of the police officers hasn't escorted her back to her nice warm house. Instead they're too busy watching the SOCO team come and go from their vans, and now, giving unwelcoming looks at the SUV.

Owen is already tugging on gloves as Jack lifts the police tape and they saunter in, leaving Gwen to deal with the officers and confirm that we're allowed to be here. The one in charge is not someone I've seen before, but looks just the sort to butt heads with Jack, or anyone, for that matter. Better that Gwen handles them. I try to sneak through whilst she's buttering up their detective inspector.

It doesn't take long to see why the police had marked it as a breaking and entering gone wrong. Everything in the living room and the hallway has been knocked over. Pictures that used to hang on the wall are now lying smashed on the parquet flooring. In the kitchen, there are broken plates scattered all over and the kitchen tap is spraying water because it's broken loose from the pipe below. On the face of it, you'd think someone trashed the place, looking for something, but the more I look around, the more I can tell this was no break-in. Burglars don't throw open crockery cupboards and knock the plates out onto the floor, nor do they smash plumbing. No, this is the result of an earth tremor, or air quake, or whatever we're calling it.

I follow the sound of the others into the living room. What I find is not what I expect. This isn't just a break in gone wrong; this is brutal, bloody murder.

He can't be more than late twenties, sprawled on the sofa in a way that doesn't look comfortable. His jaw is agape, like he's seen something from a horror movie in the moments before death. And the blood; there's so much of it. It splatters across the walls and the carpet, to say nothing of the amount pooling beneath his body. I swallow down hard and try to keep my stomach where it is, but the metallic smell of blood is so strong I can almost taste it in my mouth. It's not until Owen stands up from his position, leaning over the body, that I can see that everything from the nose upward has been torn from his face, matching the vicious clawing that has opened up his torso the same way.

I don't hear Gwen enter behind me until she speaks. 'Oh,' she says, holding up her arm across her mouth, before she too acclimatises to the scene. 'It looks like he's been mauled by a bear.'

'Thank you, PC Cooper,' Owen says. 'Now that you don't require an actual medical opinion, I'll be off.'

Gwen takes her cue to be quiet and let Owen get on with the task at hand, Jack watching his every move closely.

'If it's a mauling, it's a very specific one. Eyeballs are missing right down to the optic nerves, as is the nasal cartilage, and,' he pauses, reaching a long gloved hand into the man's torso, receiving three sets of disapproving grimaces, 'lungs, liver, and kidneys.'

'Not the heart?' Jack asks.

Owen reaches further in. 'No,' he confirms.

Gwen paused to consider, folding her arms, looking thoughtful. 'I thought we said this thing was enormous? If it is the same thing that came through the Rift then how did it fit in here, and why would it attack?'

Jack looked equally perplexed. 'Tosh, are we getting any readings?'

'Same as before. Weak electromagnetic disturbances emanating from this location.'

'Rift related?'

'No traces of Rift energy. I'm not sure what that means.' Yet.

'Okay.' Jack folds his arms in that predictable way that says we're done here. 'Pack up the body and take it back to the Hub.'

Despite the cold, it's a relief to be back out in the fresh air. The police seem to have dissipated from the scene, only two of them left now, and the SOCO van gone. I almost feel sorry for the two men left. They'll be the ones who'll have to arrange for the clean-up after we're gone, and worse, they'll be the ones who have to inform the family. I don't envy them that.

Owen and Jack are carrying the body between them in a black bag. There's no being subtle about it, even black screams out "dead body". Before we make it as far as the SUV passenger doors, the old woman returns and intercepts us.

'My microwave is on the blink now,' she complains. 'Could you come take a look at it?' she asks Jack. It probably got affected by the electromagnetic disturbances. 

He smiles congenially at her. 'I'd love to, but they don't let me near anything with more than two moving parts. Why don't we send an electrician round to come and take a look?'

'You're such a good boy,' she says, smiling and reaching up to pinch his cheek, before tottering back off to her house, ignorant of the fact that she's parading around the street in her dressing gown. How does he do that? Just manages to charm all and sundry without any effort? I’ll never know.

'Lucky you're spoken for, Harkness,' Owen jibes. 'She's a right catch, that one.'

Jack grins at him before throwing open the driver's door. 'I'll pass on your number, if you like.'

'No thanks. Necrophilia is more your thing than mine. You've got the age for it.'

Ianto is taking lunch orders, but right now I don't think I could stomach anything. Just knowing the mutilated body is a few feet away in Owen's autopsy bay is enough to remind me of the smell of that place. Besides, I've now got the data from the Riverside apartment to study. The epicentre was definitely the kitchen. That was where the most damage was. If something did come through from somewhere, it travelled until it found the poor man in the living room, before tearing his body apart.

The new data doesn't gel with the current model. There's no rift activity for a start, which is perplexing. I'd been hoping that we could use some of the Rift predictor programming to try and pinpoint a likely location where the next tremors might occur. I'm also hoping, probably just like everyone else is, that the killing this morning was accidental, or at least as a result of confrontation, and not the creature's modus operandi.

Owen is down in autopsy, taking a better look at the victim. Gwen is reviewing the statements collected by the police, along with photographs from the scene and whatever street camera footage we can get our hands on. Somewhere across the Hub, I can hear Ianto's voice on the phone with the BGS, trying to get access to the last two weeks of seismic data, which for reasons unknown, isn’t stored anywhere on a connected server that we can access.

Jack's worried about more tremors. The next might not be as small, or it could hit the city centre. At the other end of the Hub, I can hear his voice, getting gradually louder. Probably the Home Office, I surmise, wanting an explanation when we don't have one.

'Okay, that's weird,' I hear Gwen mutter as she stares at something on her computer.

'What's weird?' Ianto asks as he comes past, delivering a much needed caffeine boost.

'That,' she says pointing at the screen. Ianto peers in for a closer look.

'You don't think it's connected, do you?'

'Think what's connected?' Jack says, appearing out of the blue, mug in hand.

She shows him the police report and the accompanying photos. 'Seven sheep mysteriously mauled on a farm just outside Leckwith. I'd put it down to wolves or dogs, until the farmer said their eyes had been eaten away.'

'Did we register seismic activity?'

'I don't know, why don't we ask the sheep?'

Jack gave Ianto a look. 'On it,' he replied, already dialing his phone.

'Owen, where are we at with the body?'

'Well, despite all the blood and gore, we have a fussy eater on our hands. Specific body parts removed completely.'

'They were definitely eaten? Not just removed?'

'Traces of a saliva-like substance in some of the blood spatter.'

'It chewed them out?'

'No. Looks like sharp claws of some kind removed the parts before they were ingested.'

'I think I'm going vegan from now on,' I say. Meat has well and truly lost its appeal. 

'Same seismic readings as before,' Ianto confirms, closing his phone.

'I don't understand,' Gwen begins, 'why…hang on,' she says, as her phone starts ringing. 'Yeah, Andy, what is it? Right.' There's a long pause. 'Okay, we’ll be there soon.' That doesn't sound good. 'The sheep will have to wait. There’s been another murder.'

'Where?' Jack asks.

'Cathays. Only this time, someone saw something.'

'Let's go.'

It feels like deja vu, being out the front of another block of flats, police milling about in the hallways at the bottom of the complex, avoiding the wind squalls outside. Amongst them though is one tall thin officer who’s been waiting for us. On top of that, it's been snowing since we last headed out, and now it’s late into the evening, so everyone else is tucked up nice and warm in bed. Some place I wouldn't mind being.

'Did ya miss me?' Jack greets PC Andy. It's not a love/hate relationship, but there's a certain amount of tense feeling between them. Andy thinks of Jack as being flashy, and probably a bit of a twat. Jack has a lingering distrust of the police and their abilities. I suppose the truth lies somewhere in between.

'I wouldn't have called, only it's a bit, well, let's just say, when they start going mental and blathering on about stuff that doesn't exist, I figure it's always better safe than sorry.'

'Appreciate you calling us.'

'As if that's not bad enough, the chief is going mental that they've just called another one in.'

'Another one?' I blurt out, before I can stop myself.

Andy tucks his thumbs into the edges of his high vis jacket. 'Earthquakes, serial killers. You'd tell me if the world was ending, wouldn't you?'

'What do you think?' is the only answer Jack gives as he starts up the apartment block stairwell, taking the stairs three at a time.

'Yep, I'll just stay here and convince all the other residents that their building is not about to come crumbling down around their ears then, shall I?'

Andy seems like a really nice guy. He'd been Gwen's partner and mentor on the force before she'd joined Torchwood, so he had to be the patient sort. And he has a sense of humour too. Okay, so the height difference might complicate things a bit, but that's not the end of the world. Maybe I should ask him out on a date instead of pining after Owen.

Instead I sneak up the stairs whilst Andy is still blustering on about Torchwood, leaving him to clean up the mess. If only he knew.

The flat is not nearly as bad this time around. I guess after this morning’s efforts, it's lost some of the shock factor. It's still not pretty though.

This one is in the shower stall. Someone has turned off the water so that whatever evidence has been left behind doesn't get washed away. Part of me wishes they'd turn it back on so at least it would wash away the blood, but it’s evidence now, for what it’s worth. The shower stall glass is cracked and splintered, yet still in one piece, obscuring the worst of it. The floor tiles have met a similar fate. There's no question that the place has been hit by another tremor, and some of the residents in the building felt it too.

Andy has followed us up the stairs and is now parked in the doorway to the bathroom, whilst the rest of us are already crowded inside.m'Did you want my expert knowledge or not?' he asks. 'Here I am, PC Davidson, ready and willing to further vital interagency relationships.'

Jack turns and scrutinises him. 'You said there was a witness. All I see is a dead guy.'

'He is the witness.'

Even I can't help but raise my eyebrows at the comment, along with everyone else.

Andy rolls his eyes impatiently as us like we're all idiotic schoolchildren. 'He was on the phone to his wife when it happened. Lazy bugger left it on speakerphone whilst he was getting ready in the bathroom. One second they're debating the merits of Cordon Bleu over lasagna, and the next he's screaming something about faeries.'

I turn to face him. 'She heard him being attacked?'

'Start to finish. Poor thing.'

Jack goes instantly pale at the word faerie. 

Andy catches the expression. 'I'm not wrong though, am I? This is one of your weird alien things that you won't tell me about, isn't it?'

'Where is she now?' Jack asks. He'll want to interview her. We can probably get a recording from the telephone company that will tell us as much. I can't imagine well get much out of her in this state. I know I wouldn't if it were me.

'They've taken her to the hospital to treat her for shock. The house won't be cleared for days yet. We've arranged for her to stay with family until then.' He tugs absently on his bright yellow police jacket lapels. 'My advice, leave her be. She's been through enough.' There's a challenging glare there, but Jack seems too distracted to give it his best effort. 'That's me done then, is it?' Andy says.

'You've been very helpful,' I say, trying to ease some of the tension.

'Right, well if you're not going to tell me what's going on, I'd better not find myself being attacked by aliens coming through a crack in my wall. That and my landlord will be livid.' When no one responds to his comments he rolls his eyes again and makes his way back out of the flat, footsteps plodding down the stairs in the silence that hangs over the rest of the flat.

'Owen, take the body back with us.'

'Husband,' Gwen interrupts, still staring down at the bloodied corpse in the cubicle.

Jac raises an eyebrow at her. 'Sorry?'

She fixes him with one of those emotionally charged looks. 'He’s not a body, he's somebody's husband. And he's just been torn apart by something we don't even know what it is, for no good reason.'

It's only now that I realise Gwen has been very quiet during the earlier exchanges. Usually, she's peppering everyone with questions. Perhaps this hits too close to home for her. It could have easily been Rhys, and that's a sobering thought.

The ride back to the Hub is tense. Jack's gripping the wheel far tighter than usual, and his flair for throwing the SUV into tight turns and braking hard, only serves to confirm his agitation. No one wants to say what everyone else is thinking.

C'mon Tosh. Take one for the team and tackle the elephant in the room. 'Could the Mara have come back?'

At first I think Jack's not going to reply. Those few seconds of silence hang there for an eternity.

'They don't usually kill like this. They use the elements to murder their victims - wind, water, earth.'

'They did cause the weather to go haywire. Could the earth tremors be connected?'

'But why the killing spree? There's not another Chosen One in the picture.'

'That we know of,' Owen says darkly.

Jack shakes his head subtly, eyes not leaving the road. 'The killings seem too random, too unconnected.'

'And there's the sheep. And the missing body parts,' Gwen adds.

'Exactly.'

'So why was he yelling about faeries, then?'

Owen leans back and crosses his arms. 'Not really the first thing you think to start yelling about when you're being torn apart for vital organs, is it?'

'Run background checks on all the victims, including the one we don't have yet. They're all male so far, so I'm not prepared to rule anything out.' 

'What if it is them?' I can't help but blather out the question. I started this conversation, after all.

'I don't know,' Jack says.

I really wish I hadn't asked.

The SUV rolls into the underground carpark, but only long enough for Ianto to greet us downstairs and help Owen to load the body from the back of the car and onto a trolley to be transported into the Hub, ready for autopsy.

'Owen, you and Toshiko go and follow up on victim number three. Gwen and I have a date at the hospital.'

'I thought we were going to leave her alone?' Gwen says defiantly, firing up the argument Andy started back at the block of flats.

'She might know something about her husband’s movements in the days leading up to this. We have to follow it up.'

Gwen's not at all happy, so despite everything, picking up a dead body seems the better end of the deal.

We're barely at victim number three's house fifteen minutes, examining the body before Ianto is calling in to report a suspected location. There’s no police report yet, so there’s no way of knowing if there’s a body.

'The tremors were very weak. Almost didn't get picked up at all.'

Owen quickly tugs off his rubber gloves, having seen all he needs to see. 'Where?' 

'The old dockyards.'

'And you think we'll find a body down there?' I ask, half dreading the thought.

'I didn't say that. Might find some sort of clue though.' He sounds hopeful.

'We’ll be lucky to find our way back to the car in this weather,' Owen moans.

The old docks are a favoured haunt for all sorts, except for the law abiding kind. Down here you’re more likely to find gangs, drug dealers, the homeless, and often, weevils. If we do find a body, it might be difficult to tell if it’s been attacked by a mystery creature from another planet, or whether it’s just a spaced out junkie who’s died of an overdose and now feeding the local rat population.

The snow is coming down heavy now, and the wind is piling it up in drifts against the sides of disused warehouses, wind whistling between their narrow sides.

'Jack's worried,' I say, needing the break the silence as we force our way into one of the large buildings, following Ianto’s directions, though the wind outside is still howling, and threatening to knock the rusted doors in for us.

Owen flips on his torch and casts a wide view of the room. 'Jack's always worried.'

'No, he isn't.' Jack is the most laissez-faire person I know. If he’s worried, I’m worried.

'No, he's not,' Owen admits. 'I was just trying to make you feel better.'

'Thanks.'

'Don't mention it.'

'If it is the Mara, though?'

'Then we’ll send them off packing, Chosen One or not.'

I wish I had Owen's confidence.

'Anything on the readings?'

I'm so focused on trying to make out the bizarre shapes in the dark with my flashlight that I've almost forgotten. 'They’re the same as all the others places, but different, almost wavering rather than growing weaker.'

'We should split up,' Owen suggests. 'Sooner we get this place cleared, sooner we can go home.'

Reluctantly I agree.

Owen heads off through a door to another part of the warehouse, whilst I stay and continue to explore the vast interior here. In the darkness a body could lie hidden just about anywhere.The whole place seems to rattle and shake, but that could just be the wind. I consult the PDA again. The signals seem to be coalescing more strongly, but I’m not sure what that means. That’s never happened before. In each place we’ve been so far, the signals grew weaker, not stronger. It gives me a bad feeling.

'Ianto? Are you getting anything at your end?' I'm sure it's nothing but having someone else voice in my ear is strangely reassuring at three AM in a deserted building.

'Nothing,' he confirms.

I look down at the PDA again, convinced that maybe I'm imagining it, and then the screen flickers a few times. I don't get a chance to investigate it before I hear a commotion in the next storeroom across. There's gunfire and a scream. Owen's.

I run.

The storeroom is dark, and I can barely make out Owen's body, lying prone on the ground. His torch has rolled away across the floor, casting its light in the opposite direction. It's only the gasping and pained sounds the lead me to him. Even in my own torchlight, it's difficult to make out the extent of his injuries, but it's safe to say that what I can see is blood, and lots of it.

'Owen!'

'Tosh,' he wheezes back. 'S'gone.' I can only assume he means the creature, which up until now I'd temporarily forgotten about.

'Stay calm. You'll be fine,' I say, trying to keep my voice level. Inside I'm panicking off the scales.

'S'not good,' he says.

'Shut up. When I want your medical opinion, I'll ask for it.' I wrench off my scarf and press it against the gaping claw marks running across his torso. He cries out in pain and I feel awful and helpless. Then I remember I'm not alone.

'Ianto, call an ambulance! Owen’s been attacked.'

It feels like forever, but the sound of sirens grows slowly louder. Feet are pounding against the concrete floors, and Jack and Gwen are there beside me, followed quickly by the paramedics. It's only in the stream of torchlight than I finally see how bad it is. The gashes across Owen's torso are deep and thick with red blood. My hands are covered in it, hot and wet, soaked right through my scarf which is no longer a soft, pale blue, from where I've stupidly been applying pressure, whether it’s the right thing to do or not.

Jack immediately jumps into the fray, adding his own hands to the bloody mess before paramedics shoo both of us away and out of their hair.

'Tosh, sweetheart.' I hear Gwen coaxing me away from the harried scene. I don't realise I'm just standing there, transfixed as the paramedics make calm, considered movements, as if there's no peril at all.

'Tosh? Tosh!' Not Gwen's voice this time. Ianto's. I forget that he can hear everything that's going on, and yet not know what's going on. Gwen's updating him on the situation, but the words all seem muffled to me.

'Tosh,' Jack is standing in front of me now. 'Owen's going to be okay, but I need you to tell me what you saw.'

Honestly? Nothing. How useless is that? 'I... I don't know. I wasn't with him when it happened.'

'Did you see anything? Hear anything?'

Pull yourself together Tosh! 'Nothing. Owen fired his gun and I went after him.'

Jack taps his earpiece. 'Ianto, get me CCTV of the area.'

'It's a disused area, there's not much around,' I hear him reply.

'I don't care! Just get me whatever you can!' Jack barks. 'I want this damn thing found!'

I'm standing just outside the warehouse with Gwen. The snow and the wind have subsided, just a light sprinkling of snowflakes falls over the empty space now. We're both watching them loading Owen into the emergency vehicle. From what I can tell, he's conscious, but on a lot of pain meds. And from where I'm standing, it doesn't look like the paramedics are happy about Jack trying to get sense from him before they pack him off to the hospital. No one wants to leave him, but all we’d be doing at the hospital is sitting around on our hands. Meanwhile there's still, a killer on the loose. That's the thing I hate about Torchwood. Even when one of your own is down, you have to just suck it up and carry on. The job takes precedence over everything.

The CCTV from around the docks turns out to be a bust. Even our own movements around the dockyards are barely registered on the few cameras dotting the area. Half of Cardiff could be murdered down there, their bodies dumped in the bay, and no one would be any the wiser. It’s a huge blow, and now we’re a team member down.

Jack's demanding that we all try and get a few hours’ sleep. I don't think I can after the last few hours, but Jack is insistent. I look around forlornly. Gwen is already curled up on the sofa.

'Use my bed,' Jack offers, but is sounds more like a gentle order than a suggestion.

'What about you?'

'I'm good,' he assures me.

It's not the first time I've been down here, but it still, somehow feels like an invasion of privacy. This is Jack's space. Well, his and Ianto's now I suppose.

I stare at the tiny bed, pulling back the covers. How on earth they both fit is a mathematical problem I don't have a solution for. All the same, there's plenty of room for just me.

I lie down on the pillow and pull the covers over me, feeling tired in a way I didn't before. Perhaps the adrenaline is wearing off. The pillow smells like Ianto's cologne, and Jack's, or his pheromones - or whatever it is that makes him smell the way he does. It's oddly reassuring, like a warm blanket. I breathe it in slowly.

'Tosh?' Someone is gently shaking me awake. Ianto, I realise, judging by the deep voice.

'How long have I been asleep?' It doesn’t feel long, but sometimes when you’re really tired, hours can pass in the blink of an eye. Perhaps whole days have gone by and I haven’t noticed.

'Two hours. Sorry it’s not longer,' he apologises. I don’t complain. He’s probably had less than me.

Owen's awake. That’s the reason for the wakeup call. It's the first good news I can remember for days. I don’t think I'd know what to do with myself if we lost any of the team. It was bad enough when we lost Suzie. For all the danger we end up in, we never really stop to think about it much. Maybe it's denial.

Of course, Owen being Owen, he continues to be stubborn. Instead of moping about in bed and driving the nurses up the wall, he's demanding to speak to us. Some poor nurse manager has chewed off Jack’s ear on the phone until he agrees to send someone down there to see him.

Tugging on my coat, and pulling the collar up high against my neck, I can see Jack across the way, locked away in his office, pouring over a mountain of old archive records. Anything Mara related, Ianto explains, having spent the night dredging up the records from the dark, dusty corners of archive vaults down below, trying to find a connection.

Gwen is trying to stem the tide of phone calls from the police, wanting to know what the hell we’re doing to stop this mad serial killer. That leaves Ianto and I as the envoy to find out why Owen is being such a model patient.

'Should've brought him grapes,' Ianto says, as we walk down the corridor trying to find the right ward.

'Owen hates grapes,' I say, having forgotten that I'd stored away that little tidbit of information until this very moment.

Ianto just shrugs and smiles. 'It's the thought that counts.'

Owen is struggling to sit up when we poke our heads in through the door. Any nice thoughts about what a relief it is to see him alive and well, are dashed by his own terse greeting. About bloody time,' he grumbles. 'Were you waiting for an engraved invitation?'

Clearly any sedatives they’ve given him have well and truly worn off. That or they can’t find the right dosage to combat Owen’s temper in full flight.

Ianto shoves his hands in his pockets. 'They say doctors make the worst patients.'

'Save it, Teaboy. You okay, Tosh?'

The question takes me by surprise. Owen isn't usually so considerate when things aren't going his way. 'I'm fine. How are you?'

'Alive, thanks to you.' I’m taken aback by the sudden profusion of gratitude. Did they transplant his personality when they patched him up, I wonder.

'Paramedics did all the hard work.' For a second there's a brief moment when I feel like he sees me as the only other person in the room. It doesn't last though.

Ianto gets down to business, no doubt pressured by Jack to get whatever information he can. 'What did you see?'

'Bloody quick, it was. I could've sworn I was alone in the room until two seconds before I was attacked.'

'But what was it attacked you?'

Owen tries to struggle to sit up, failing. 'Couldn't see much. It was small though. Three feet tall maybe, claws sharp as razor blades. And wings, it had wings like a dragonfly.'

'The Mara we saw last year were the size of adults,' Ianto replies, looking stern.

'But the ones from the park photographs taken by Estelle were no bigger than specs of light. Maybe they can change size?'

'They're not Mara,' says Owen, silencing the pair of us.

'How do you know?'

'The missing body parts. All the same. Eyes, lungs, liver, kidney. Tissues with high amounts of very specific genetic tissues. It's not hungry. It's after those parts for a reason. Not some Chosen One.'

'What reason?' Ianto asks as he watches Owen wincing, still trying to sit up despite the pain. He lends a hand to prop him up better.

'They're being ingested right? Why ingest body tissues unless it needs them for a reason?'

'DNA? But you can't just take someone else's DNA.'

'Human tissue rejection,' Owen agrees. 'But this thing isn't human. Maybe it's using the material to change its own form. You've seen how powerful it is, and it's half my size.'

'But to what end?' Ianto asks.

'I don't know. It's up to you geniuses to figure that out now.'

Leaving the hospital should have us feeling good. Owen's okay, and we now have some description of what the creature looks like, and even what its purpose might be, but for some reason it still feels like we're a million miles from solving the puzzle. Where will it strike next? How does it move around? What do the earth tremors have to do with its appearance? There's a connection there, but I can't see it yet.

Back in the boardroom and it's a round of desperately needed coffees and discussions about ruling out the Mara theory. I can't tell if Jack is more relieved or concerned. I stare down at my nearly empty coffee mug whilst Gwen is running through a profiling report she's compiled on the victims so far. All male aged between twenty and forty, but no relationship between location, occupation, activities or medical histories. I made her add that to the list. If Owen thought there was something physically desirable about the victims’ physiology, I wanted Gwen to look into it.

I sit there wishing my cup was full again. The first one didn't even hit the sides, and my desire for more seems inversely proportionate to the amount left in the mug.

Inverse, inverse... Then the idea hits me. 'We were looking for something big, when we should have been looking for something small.' The three of them look at me strangely. That in itself is nothing new. 'The disturbances every time it appeared made us think something huge was trying to force itself through the Rift, causing the tremors and electromagnetic disturbances. And each time it appeared, well, it couldn't just be popping back and forth through the Rift at will. It was coming from somewhere else.'

Jack is ahead of the rest of them. 'Another dimension on Earth?'

'Not just a dimension. A negative dimension.' That's where my calculations had been off. I hadn't even thought to consider negative dimensions. That changed things completely. It wasn't the power needed to generate mass through the Rift, it was the power required to split the entrance from one dimension to another. The requirement, even theoretically, would be enormous, meaning that what had come through, would actually be very small.

Ianto twiddles his mug around. 'Translation for the laymen in the room?'

'There are dozens of dimensions that exist. We can observe three, being height, width, and length. The fourth is time, but beyond that, there could be as many as twenty other dimensions that exist that we can't physically observe with the human eye.'

'So, what's a negative dimension?'

I begin drawing on the notepad in front of me. It looks like a badly drawn Vienetta ice cream cake. 'Where dimensional spaces coincide in time,' I say, pointing my pen at where the up and down swirls of ice-cream meet the straight layers of chocolate, 'there are holes, or negative dimensions. Every law of physics would apply in the inverse within negative space. So, if a large object caused a high resistance to particles around it, in a negative dimension, a small object with a low resistance would cause the same outcome.'

'I still don't get it,' Gwen replies.

'Think of it like a boat out at sea.' I know I shouldn’t mix metaphors, but the ice-cream one didn’t seem to work. 'A small boat leaves hardly a trail behind it, whereas a large boat leaves a giant wake behind it, disrupting the ocean. We saw the large earth tremor when the creature came through.'

'We thought it was a space whale,' Ianto adds.

'Exactly. We expected it to be large because of the large wake. In negative space, the same occurs when a small being tries to break through.'

'So, it's got nothing to do to with the Rift?'

'I think the Rift might have brought it here, but that wherever it comes from originally, it exists in negative space.'

'So, why doesn't more stuff come through from other dimensions if there's so many of them?'

'The energy output to move from one dimension to another would be enormous, not to mention the toll it would take on the body. Even the concept of existing in negative space is only theoretical. With the laws of physics reversed, genetic mitosis would be incredibly difficult to sustain.'

Jack looks thoughtful before he speaks. 'The negative space on this planet might not exactly equate to its own home world. Could it be using the bodies to rebuild its own genetic structure? Is that what Owen was thinking?'

'It's all still theory, but yes, that could very well be it.'

'So, it's not going to stop, then?' Gwen says. 'It'll just keep killing to replenish itself.'

'Unless we can stop it,' Jack declares.

'We have to find it first.'

'Well, we can't just wait for another earth tremor,' Gwen says. 'It'll be too late by then.'

Ianto purses his lips. 'And we have no idea of where it will happen.'

'Maybe we can narrow it down though.'

'What are you thinking, Tosh?' Jack can sense the wheels turning, or maybe it's the vacant expression that's probably on my face as I'm trying to turn over the possibilities in my head. What am I thinking indeed? The ideas are racing through my brain so fast it almost hurts. But if I'm right, it could be a game changer. 'I need to run some models based on the data we've collected, but I've got an idea.'

The math is more complicated than I expect, but once the equation is in the model, the data suddenly seems to make a lot more sense.

'Electromagnetic interference.' I'm not expecting anyone to grasp the "ah ha" moment, but it's a start.

Ianto frowns at me. 'What about it?'

'Electromagnetic disruption is what we recorded each time the creature came through. Only the more electromagnetic interference there was, the bigger the tremors, on account of the power necessary to jump from one dimension to the other.'

'How does that help us?'

'I took a look at each of the locations where someone was attacked. Each registered a disproportionately lower level of electromagnetic radiation than what we would normally expect.'

Gwen joins in the frowning. 'Is that like phones, and computers and toasters and stuff?'

I nod. 'All electrical devices generate radiation. Even our bodies have a small electric current running through them. But in negative space, there is little or no electromagnetic charge. That means that it's far easier to slip between a gap in the dimensions where electrical interference is low.'

'Like sneaking inside through the back door because you know it's unlocked,' Jack replies. Now I’ve got him using metaphors.

'Exactly. Look. The first victim was living on an estate. Poorer neighbourhood, so less technology emitting electrical energy signatures.'

'Try telling that to my sister,' Ianto complains. 'They always seem to have plenty of stuff they can't afford.'

'Second victim,' I continue. 'Apartment block in Cathays. The snow storm outside had pulled down power poles, so the whole place was being kept going by a single generator with limited power. The sheep on the farm? Not a light pole or electrical grid for miles.'

'And the others? 'Jack asks.

'All instances where the victims were isolated, or somewhere with low levels of electricity, including the warehouse, where we were attacked.'

Gwen crosses her arms and sucks in a breath, digesting this new information. 'Okay, so we think it's coming through via the path of least resistance. I still don't see how that helps us. There's got to be hundreds of spots where it could come through.'

'Unless we give it gift too tempting to refuse.' I look at Jack and get the feeling he's hatching a plan.

'Bute Park?' Gwen says, looking incredulous.

'It's the perfect location. Big, empty... Well, after we cordon it off,'

'And by “we” he means me,' Ianto adds.

'And limited electrical interference for a good mile in each direction.'

'And what makes you think it will just decide to turn up there?' she replies, cocking her head to one side.

Jack grins. 'Me.'

Suddenly we all realise what Jack's suggesting. He's going in as bait.

'No, absolutely not. We'll think of something else,' Gwen argues.

'Why not? I'm male, aged between twenty and forty...'

Ianto coughs. Whether he means Jack's physical age, or mental age, none can tell.

'And,' Jack perseveres, ignoring the obvious slight, 'the most desirable thing around. Who wouldn't want me?' He grins in that confident way that makes us all come to reluctant agreement.

It sounds easy, saying we’ll just cordon off a whole chunk of the city. Apart from a few dog walkers and fitness enthusiasts, how hard could it possibly be? It's not until I review the data and realise that we need to clear at least four hundred yards in diameter that the enormity of the job presents itself. There's the Castle for a start, Swalec Stadium, the University, the Drama College, National Museum, and a local tennis club. On top of this, there's a whole bunch of government buildings in the vicinity who aren't best pleased to have the entire power grid mysteriously fail, and several hundred public servants who are just glad for the afternoon off.

Gwen has arranged for the police to put the word around about a serious gas leak in the area, and to evacuate the park and surrounds, taping off the whole area this side of the Taff.

'I've got reports of five more murders across the city,' Gwen puffs, holding up a sheaf of papers that have impeded her efforts to get the police to cooperate.

'Okay, how are we going with sealing off the park?' Jack asks.

'Almost done,' I say, 'just hacking Swalec's backup generator system and shutting it off.'

Ianto consults the clipboard in front of him. 'The University is offline, but I've spent the last hour on the phone with the Preservation Society of Wales. They're none too happy about us shutting off power to the hermetic vaults underneath the castle. They're housing hundreds of priceless artefacts under strict temperature and humidity controls.'

'Did you remind them that it's below zero out there? If they're worried about humidity, maybe they should go spent ten minutes standing out on the battlements.'

'They were very insistent.'

I can sense the growing argument. Ianto is sympathetic to their concerns, and we’re asking them to jeopardise irreplaceable national treasures. That and Ianto is steadfastly patriotic.

'Shut it down Tosh,' comes the order. The argument is over before it had a chance to begin. Jack is like that sometimes, determinedly single-minded.

'I don't like this,' Gwen says, sitting in the front of the SUV, arms crossed, waiting in the dark with the rest of us.

'Me neither,' Ianto adds, trying to focus on the computer readings on the PDA in his hand, whilst I monitor the rest of the details on the screens in the back seat. Luckily for us, the SUV is shielded on the outside, meaning that any electrical interference generated by our equipment won't be felt nearby. Even then, we're still parked a good two hundred yards from Jack's current position. I think it's the carpark for the drama college. And Jack is on the other side of the park completely, his chosen spot a well wooded patch near the river and a small restaurant that I remember visiting once. 

'Of all the days it decided to drop twenty inches of snow,' Jack complains over his comms unit, trudging through the thick layer of ice.

Somehow it feels like justification for allowing us to go ahead with this ridiculous plan. Using your teammates as bait is never a good plan.

'Serves him right,' Ianto mutters. 'Do you know what he said to me when he woke me up this morning? He says "It's Owen." nothing else, just "It's Owen." I thought he must have died the way he said it. Not "Ianto, Owen's woken up and is being his usual pain in the arse self. Can you please go sort him out?" Bloody git. I want to hit him with a rolled up newspaper sometimes.'

I can't help but smile. It's an unintended levity that breaks the tension in the car. It's just lucky there's no newsprint in the car right now, else we'd probably all be taking turns. Leader or not, not all of Jack's decisions are good, or smart.

'Are you getting any readings, Tosh?' Jack calls over our comms. I check the monitors again and start to see the tiniest flickering in mesospheric pressure. That makes sense; it's the lower band of atmosphere just below the ionosphere, which is far too electrically charged for the creature to be able to break through.

'Jack, I think it's coming through.'

'Stay where you are until I give the signal,' he orders, sounding sharp and alert.

A few minutes pass by in silence but the readings are growing strong and stronger until there's a sharp spike.

'It's here.'

Gwen turns back to face me. 'I didn't feel anything.'

'You wouldn't. We kept resistance to a minimum so the creature should have been able to pass from one dimension to the other without disturbing the air.'

'Jack, can you see anything?' Gwen asks, peering peer out into the darkness through the windscreen as if expecting to see something.

'No, nothing, there's noth- Argh!' There's one pained cry and then nothing

'That's good enough signal for me,' Gwen says as she's already pulling back on the safety of her gun and piling out of the door. Ianto and I quickly clamber out of the back of the car, guns also near to hand, and hot on her heels as she breaks into a run across the carpark and through the trees at the edge of the parkland.

I'm starting to wish we'd waited until it was light to attempt this plan. The park is almost black and the trees seem to jump out at you as they come into view at the very last minute. All I know is that I'm following the crunching footsteps of Gwen and Ianto, and hoping to God that none of us trip over a branch hidden under the thick snow and break an ankle. I wish we hadn't parked so far away. Yet another thing to curse Jack for. Right now though, he needs our help.

Fifty yards from Jack's last know position, and Gwen makes the order for us to split up. I'm on the straight ahead path, whilst she and Ianto flank left and right. I’ve only been on my own for a few minutes when several gunshots ring out, sharp like Chinese firecrackers, and then there's silence. It's creepy in a way I can't even describe, yet I quicken my pace all the same. I hear Gwen calling Jack's name over the comms, over and over again, but there's no response.

The snow is getting deeper the further I walk, almost up to my calves in some spots and though I'm treading carefully, inevitably I trip over something, only it's not a branch or log. It’s the one thing I’ve been dreading. Jack.

I can't see much in the dark with only my tiny flashlight held under my gun, but it’s enough to see that Jack is badly injured. There are deep cutting wounds across his torso, his pale blue shirt torn apart and almost black from the blood soaking through it. There’s a brief cough emitted from his lips and I look up just at the moment when the light seems to go out of his eyes. It makes me feel sick and want to cry. Then I remember the creature is still out here somewhere. I swallow hard and stand up, calling the others to the location and to be on the lookout for it. It isn’t necessary though. As the torchlight scans the area surrounding us I find it, just a few yards away.

At least one of Jack's shots has found its mark. Like him it's lying wounded in the snow. It's the first time any of us has the opportunity to get a proper look it. It's slender and lithe, female, with long glimmering wings like those of a dragonfly, just as Owen had said. It looka very much like a faerie or an angel, with long silvery hair that flows down around her fine mauve skin, like a delicate winter bloom.

'Tosh? Tosh?' I can hear Gwen yelling out my name and she comes running towards me. Ianto is not far behind her, and when they see what I'm standing over, they pause there, guns pointed directly at it.

I didn't notice before, but it is in fact still alive, and with us towering over it, it grins malevolently, bearing its sharp white teeth, making a gurgling, menacing sound, and flexing the long knife-like talons on the end of each of its slender fingers, dripping with blood.

'Who are you and what do you want?' Gwen demands.

The creature says nothing, but continues to writhe in a threatening way, clearly injured and in pain, one of her wings badly torn, but still looking defiant. There's really no telling if she's as injured as she makes out, or whether she's waiting for us to falter.

She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, a tiny, bloody angel in the snow, and we were going to destroy her. I know I shouldn't get emotional about this. After all, it's because of her that Owen is lying in a hospital bed, alive but badly injured. Jack has met the same fate, as have over a dozen others. She is a killer. I shouldn't feel any sympathy or mercy and yet it still feels wrong. I glance across at Ianto and see the same reticence I'm feeling, but there's equal parts determination. Without Jack, he has to take the reins. Gwen is paused over her as well and between the three of us, I'm not sure who's waiting for who to take the lead anymore.

It shouldn't be this hard. We've killed before to save lives. And none of us hesitated when Beth was about to skewer Gwen. What makes this any different? Maybe it's because she's injured. It doesn't seem fair or just. Perhaps we should take her back to the hub and try to fix her. Perhaps she'll be grateful and leave this planet. Perhaps she was only doing what she had to in order to survive.

I spare a look at Jack, his mangled body lying broken and bloodied in the snow. They are almost like twins. Whilst that thought is still running through my mind I catch the sudden movement in the corner of my eye. I don't remember pulling the trigger, or even looking down as I did it. Maybe I had my eyes closed. All I know is that I hear other guns fire at the same time, and when I do look down, the creature is dead.

I guess we were right after all. She'd been buying herself time until she could restore her genetic makeup, probably using whatever she managed to tear from Jack, healing herself in much the same way Jack's body usually healed itself.That's what happens when you work for Torchwood too long. You start to act without thinking. Shoot first, ask questions later. Some might call it survival instincts, kill or be killed. But sometimes it just feels like murder.

When it's all done, I turn away. I can't look at her anymore. Ianto walks over to Jack's side, kneeling in the freezing cold drift of snow beside him. I watch him. Jack's eyes are still wide open. He gently raises a hand and eases them closed, before leaning in, so that their foreheads are touching, warm against cold. His injuries are bad, so I know that it will take longer than normal, but it feels like an eternity, standing and waiting, watching the two lovers oblivious to the cold. I wish Owen was here.

Then I hear it, that tiny gasp of air, and see the movement as Jack jerks upward, already being embraced by the arms that hover over him. It fills me with such a relief and lightness of heart that I can't imagine how it must make Ianto feel, knowing that his lover has returned to him once more. I hate to think what we'd do without him.

He struggles up to his feet with a bit of help, letting Ianto momentarily fuss over him, before taking charge once again. 'Is it dead?'

Three sullen silences seem to answer the question for him.

I can't sleep. I lie there, trying to convince myself that today was no different to any other day and that we did our job and kept the city safe, but it's no use. I still keep replaying the mental image of Ianto carrying the bloody creature's body back to the SUV, cradled like a tiny child, wrapped in fine gossamer.

I consider getting up and going to the Hub, but it's only four AM and to even that seems far too ambitious, especially since Jack has instructed us all to take tomorrow off. Or is that today already? Instead I get up and make a cup of tea, taking it back to bed with me to sip whilst I'm tucked up under warm blankets. I try reading a chapter or two of a book that I can't remember when I last opened. The storyline doesn't make any sense because I can't remember all the bits that happened in the chapters beforehand. I put it away and turn the lights back off, lying in the darkness, and trying not to imagine the noises that aren't actually there.

Eventually I must have fallen asleep because when I look at the clock on my bedside table, it reads just after nine in the morning.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with a day off. There's a pile of laundry needs doing and the kitchen cupboard is looking pretty pathetic. Then I remember Owen is still in the hospital, and the only thing I feel like doing is going to see him.

I take my time to fix some toast and tea for breakfast. There no rush since visiting hours won't start until after eleven, once the doctors have had a chance to do their rounds. Despite that, it’s barely a few minutes past eleven when I find myself walking down the hospital corridor, a bag of still warm cookies from the local bakery clutched in my hand.

Owen's greeting is friendly, not at all like the one we received barely twenty-four hours ago. Apart from a few scratches on his face, he looks completely normal, the hospital issue pyjamas hiding the thick bandages covering his torso. 

Somehow he must be able to tell from the expression on my face that the danger has passed or else I wouldn't be here. There's a nurse in the room fiddling with his IV line. He's watching her carefully, as if waiting for her to make some kind of mistake that he can correct, so all he says is "Did you get it sorted?"

'Yeah.' I don't feel like saying more, even after the nurse waddles back out of the room. There'll be time for that later, when I'm feeling less ambivalent about it. Some cases are just like that. Tomorrow maybe. 

We've barely been chatting for ten minutes before two familiar figures are standing in the doorway.

'Morning, Tosh. How's the patient?'

'Worse for seeing your ugly face,' Owen grumbles amiably, as Jack strolls over and dumps a bag of grapes on the small table. He scrunches up his face. 'I hate grapes.'

'I tried to tell him,' Ianto says, winking at me. 'This might be better,' he says placing the thermos of coffee next to my bag of cookies.

'I could kiss you.'

'Hey,' Jack complains, wrapping a possessive arm around Ianto.

We're all laughing and joking when the last member of our merry band joins us not long afterwards.

'Oh, hello,' Gwen says, surprised by the room already full of people. 'Aren't you just Mr Popular?'

'Irresistible,' Owen replies, smirking. I self-consciously look away from where I've been perched on the side of the bed, but my gaze only gets diverted as far as Jack who just grins stupidly at me as if we're sharing some kind of secret. Perhaps we are.

Despite the cheery mood in the room, Owen eventually turns the discussion towards the events of the night before. Jack and Gwen animatedly take turns to tell him everything, whilst Ianto and I sit there quietly and only add comments where necessary.

'We never did figure out why she only went after young males,' Gwen says afterward, looking pensive.

'Might have been a hormone thing,' Owen suggests. Plus all the testosterone and aggression might have only added to its insatiable taste for humans.'

'And sheep,' Ianto adds.

'So, it’s true what they say - you are what you eat,' Jack jokes. He leers at Ianto and makes a lewd gesture with his eyebrows that needs no translation. 'So, what does that make me then?'

'About to be hit,' he replies.


End file.
